Shipley to Ilkley via Rombalds Moor 04/06/12

Ever since hatching the idea of 'walking as pastime', there has been one walk that I have always had on the slate and never gotten done, and since 2007, I haven't had the excuse of transport costs to dissuade me from doing it. That walk is the trip from Shipley to Ilkley across Rombalds Moor as it's a journey into spectacular bleakness that isn't a day's excursion away and it's a relatively modest distance on a well-defined path too. Probably cowardice on my part for leaving it aside for so long, but how it got missed off my to do list for the first three active months is something of a mystery. So let's go out for Jubilee Bank Holiday Monday, and do my bit for Britain by patriotically engaging with the countryside. Active June? Yeah, why not?

Active June: Day One

Shipley to Ilkley via Rombalds Moor.  9.2 miles

My copy of Explorer 288 has the Dales Way Link path starting as Shipley Glen, but an internet search suggest that said path has a route all the way from Bradford now, and as a combination of being unable to trace it on my map, and having no desire whatsoever to walk from Bradford, we will take our start from Shipley and its wacky three-sided railway station. Having had only one day off since my holiday, I've not managed an early start and I caught the Bradford bound train too, so at 10.55am I'm at the furthest point possible at Shipley station  from my destination. I choose to not follow the Dales Way Link to Shipley Glen, as the Leeds & Liverpool canal path is on my list of walks to do, instead going over Briggate and along the A6038 Otley Road, over the canal and River Aire to take a most unassuming route along Green Lane and Coach Road, via the council estate. Sure the canal path through Saltaire would have been prettier, but we'll do that soon enough, and its depressing to see The Cup and Ring is boarded up and that these economic times mean you can't even keep a pub going when it's located next to Roberts Park and Salts Mill. To the hill path then, alongside Shipley Glen Tramway, which has missed a trick by nor being open today as there a plenty of folk around who'd appreciate a ride on a funicular railway, instead it's a sharp walk up hill through the woods, to find house rather than the expected moorland at the top. Development around here is weird,  how else do you explain the caravan sites on top of Baildon Moor.

Shipley Glen

Shipley Glen is a scene for joy, not least because it is teeming with people enjoying the great outdoors, but it provides some rocky terrain to explore when Rombalds Moor seems to want for it. Outcrops of Sandstone, locally known as Rough Rock, loom up along the edge of the valley above Loadpit Beck and Broadstone Wood, exposed in the last Ice Age and now stretching out along a solid half mile of park land. Great to find somewhere so wild so close to the town, and it's tempting to go for a bit of bouldering or to wander down into the woods, but I've got a walk to do, so I need to pick my path at the top of the glen as paths fan out as we reach the edge of Baildon Moor. The Dales way Link is probably the least obvious of all of them, as you'd think it would be the most heavily used, and we leave the Shipley Glen area passing the large sand quarry beloved by mountain-bikers and take a stroll alongside Glovershaw Beck as far as Golcar Farm, before hitting the farm tracks and field walks again. More cattle to contend with here, but at least they're not in a stampeding mode, and then I get a bit confused as the swap from map E288 to E297 illustrates the Link path going in different directions and, maybe distracted by Union Flags planted to guide a patriotic ramble, I find myself in the yard of Toils Farm wondering how I lost the path. Directed by the residents to the main road, Otley Road (a different one, navigating by road name around here must be nigh-on impossible) and ascend up the Dick Hudson's public house (who he? you ask? A publican so good they named the pub after him, it seems) and beyond there we reach the edge of Rombalds Moor, and that's also looks like lunchtime to me.

Bingley Moor

Airedale, from Bingley Moor

For our first stretch of Rombalds Moor, on the Bingley Division, we meet plenty of walkers coming the other way, and judging by how many kids are noting that this is their first time across the moor, it must be something of a family activity around these parts. Not a huge amount of interest in the moorland itself, the heather is half height and the soil peaty, and the path is frequently waterlogged, as is to be expected on a Gritstone cap such as this, but the views improve as you ascend, with Leeds and Bradford becoming ever-more obvious to those who can spot a landmark or two, and the anvil-top of Pendle Hill appearing in the west, illustrating that a lot of the North of England is a lot closer together than you'd think it was. Almscliffe Crag makes a grief appearance too, illustrating the relative proximity of Wharfedale, and the first way marker, says Ilkley is three miles distant. Cross the division wall into Burley Moor and start to appreciate just how high you've climbed, as the moor has 100 metres of elevation from its southern edge, despite appearing to be quite level, Leeds is now obvious in the distance, and Bradford appears beyond the heights of Baildon Moor, with Lower Wharfedale opening out to the north east. Coming up here on a nice, clear day is clearly a really good idea!


The Twelve Apostles, Burley Moor

Other than the way markers, there are no stones in the landscape except a few glacial erratics until the the top of the path meets The Twelve Apostles stone circle, altogether modest in scale and utterly uncertain in provenance, but a sight to see and a good place to pause and dream up your own Druidic / Neolithic theory as to its purpose.It's not a long walk from here to the summit, but we conquered that last year, and continuing north we are back into known territory, and at the Lanshaw Lad boundary stone we meet Ilkley Moor, which incorrectly has its named ascribed to the whole upland, and from here we have familiar sights like Backstone Beck and Menwith Hill in our landscape and quite a few families wondering how far it is to the top, quite a way really, and with more false summits than you want. Good to see the moor busy though, makes it feel needed, after having the top all to myself a year ago.


Crescent Hotel, Ilkley

Ilkley, from the Moor

Wander to the edge of Ilkley Crags, plotting future walks in Wharfedale and Embsay Moor, and considering finding a good path to Skipton, largely to distract myself from the impending descent to White Wells. The rock steps in the crag are no fun at all to ascend, real lungbusters, but might be worse to descend, hard to pick a slow pace when it's so busy and feeling like your legs are tiring at the end of the days exercise. White Wells is as high as the unadventurous might climb, and they don't seem to have the baths open for a Jubilee plunge, doesn't stop it being busy though, and I decide to take the slow route down to Wells Road, going on by Cuthbert Brodrick's Wells House and noting the Charles Darwin associations of the locality. The Moor ends past the Millennium Maze, and Ilkley is entered via a cattle grid, and then down Wells Promenade, all very leafy and gorgeous, into the town. I realise that despite holidaying here lat year, I made no effort to see the town back then so I make amends by wandering down to take pics of All Saints Church, the Crescent Hotel and the River Wharfe, just to prove I went from valley to valley. It would have been nice to take a paddle to soothe these feet that have walked so much in the preceding nine days, but I've got a ride home to catch. No time for pub either, just time to take pics to illustrate that the railway really did used to plough right through the town back in the day before closures rendered the station a dead end. So hop the 3.40pm train home, and that finally puts that walk on the 'Completed' list, it honestly had been a very long time coming!

1,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 195 miles